CONSIDERAȚII GENERALE ÎN LEGĂTURĂ CU REGIMUL STĂRII DE URGENȚĂ. REPERE DE DOCTRINĂ ȘI JURISPRUDENȚĂ

The state of emergency is one of the two exceptional measures regulated by the Romanian Constitution and by the Government Emergency Ordinance No 1/1999. It is a set of exceptional measures of a political, economic nature and of the nature of public order instituted when there is a serious danger for the national security and the functioning of constitutional democracy. Another legal reason to declare a state of emergency is to avoid a calamity or to exhaust the effects of a disaster. Inevitably, the measures adopted during the state of emergency lead to the restriction of the exercise of certain rights and freedoms, which is why constitutional and legal guarantees must be ensured in order for this restriction not to be abusive. The state of emergency is established for a period of maximum 30 days by decree of the President of Romania. The measures ordered by decree must be approved by the Parliament within a period of maximum 5 days. Contradictory opinions have been expressed in the doctrine regarding the legal nature of the decree of the President of Romania and of the acts issued pursuant to this decree (military ordinances and orders). Recently, the constitutional contentious court and the administrative contentious courts have ruled on the legal nature of administrative acts issued under the state of emergency. The next step in the evolution of this problem should be the reform of the normative framework regarding the exceptional states in accordance with the current provisions of the Basic Law, with the constant case law of the constitutional contentious court and, last but not least, with the approaches of some similar European regulations.